The Michigan State University Comics Forum is proud to announce another set of dual keynote speakers for our 11th Anniversary event to be held on the final weekend of February 2018.
Our Creator Keynote Speaker, Lucy Knisley, is a critically acclaimed, award-winning comic creator who specializes in personal, confessional comics and travelogues. She attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Merit Scholar, BFA 2007), followed by The Center for Cartoon Studies (Diamond in the Rough Scholar, MFA 2009). To date her work has been published by several major publishers, including French Milk (2008, Touchstone/Simon & Schuster), Relish (2013, First Second [MacMillan Comics Imprint]), An Age of License (2014, Fantagraphics), Displacement (2015, Fantagraphics), and Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride (2016, First Second [MacMillan Comics Imprint]).
2018’s Scholar Keynote Speaker, Diana Schutz, is an award-winning editor who has been working in comics for almost forty years. She was senior executive editor at Dark Horse Comics, where she was on staff from 1990 to 2015. She was Frank Miller’s editor on Sin City and 300, Matt Wagner’s editor on Grendel, Stan Sakai’s editor on Usagi Yojimbo, Paul Chadwick’s editor on Concrete, and Larry Marder’s editor on Beanworld. She applied her knowledge of romance languages to edit international material in translation such as Blacksad and The Manara Library. She has worked with authors Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Harvey Pekar, and Harlan Ellison, among others. She was fortunate to have been Will Eisner’s Dark Horse editor until his death in 2005. She is also an adjunct instructor of Comics Studies at Portland State University, a published author of both comics and prose, and the first woman to be inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame. Semi-retired, she now works as a literary translator of European comics, including work by Moebius, Manara, Muñoz & Sampayo, and more.
Our Creator Keynote Address will take place on the evening of Friday, February 23rd. Our Scholar Keynote Address will be delivered midday on Saturday, February 24th. Check back for an updated schedule.